Mar. 31, 2023
March 31, 2023 RE: File No. S7-30-22 Release No. 34-96494 Regulation NMS: Minimum Pricing Increments, Access Fees, and Transparency of Better Priced Orders This proposal is a good opportunity for the SEC to actually and appropriately wield its regulatory powers for good. If the entire world looks up to the United States' markets as beacons of equity and possibility, then fair competition requires that no singular advantage -- however minuscule -- be allowed as a favor to any participant, at any level in the system. As banks and market makers play a shell game with true price discovery, it falls upon the SEC to set and enforce regulations so that commerce and productivity drive investment gains, not politicking or carpetbaggery... especially not for companies owned by persons hoping to become the next Secretary of the Treasury to (possibly) cover up for his already-apocalyptic financial crimes. Your fines clearly don't work as a forever deterrent -- these financial traitors see your \"penalties\" as the \"cost of doing business\"... and now look where that's got us. As Jerome Powell dithers in wielding the mighty hammer of Interest Rates, at least the SEC can try to right the ship, hopefully before the iceberg hits. History is watching: will the SEC be judged complicit, or commendable? The least you can do, here, is agree on some kind of universal pricing protocol whose main selling point (or raison d'tre, I suppose) is true neutrality, where no one benefits unfairly from a LACK of competition. Competition is the pulse of Capitalism, and the markets -- which YOU are supposed to regulate -- are the playing fields where the chance to make a fortune should be available to ANYBODY. Sure, competitors will always look for an \"edge\", but that should not be provided by the Exchanges/Marketplaces themselves. Otherwise, who would ever use them? Please do the right thing.